Pey Berland

Though a peasant, he was educated early on by a retired local notary before moving to Bordeaux to continue his studies and enter the Church.

He was ordained at that point, though still young by the standards of the time, when most boys who entered the church put off priesthood until it was required by their office.

In Autumn 1408 he accompanied Uguccione to England, where the cardinal sought to persuade the English to send a delegation to the Council of Pisa - then struggling to put an end to the Western Schism.

This college was a prototype of the later diocesan seminary and in Berland's day it trained twelve young men for the priesthood.

Politically, Berland was resistant to French efforts to control Bordeaux and he strongly supported English sovereignty.

While the French kings claimed ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Bordeaux by the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, Berland rejected it.

He sent his physician back to Bordeaux in October, but he remained in England for the twofold purpose of assuring the king of the loyalty of his Gascon subjects and of keeping the plight of the Bordelais on his mind.

On 1 November 1450, a day remembered as La Male Journade ("the bad day") in Bordelais history, the citizens of Bordeaux, along with English men-at-arms and Gascon knights, sallied forth to defend the city from the encroaching armies of Amanieu of Orval, Poton de Xaintrailles, and Jean Bureau.

On 7 July 1452, Berland took an oath at the altar of his church that he would never abandon or renounce his archbishopric and wished to die an archbishop.